Lara Zankoul invites the viewer to reflect on his own reality via storytelling through her photographs. There is not one single story, one single meaning. They differ from one another with each shot. In her internationally renowned “Unseen” series (where subjects are half-submerged in water) we witness the world of appearances and are pushed to look beyond what is seen at first glance.
After depicting what we notice around ourselves, Lara’s most recent work “Rotten Beauty” supports the idea there is a truth hidden inside each one of us. This series can be portrayed by Norman Cousins’ famous quote : “The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live”.

The Zoo – Lara Zankoul

Cindy Carla Voitus: You used to work in economics. How did you fall in love withphotography? What were you first shooting about?
Lara Zankoul: I fell in love with photography very early in my life. I was also mathematically and scientifically oriented, and the mentality of taking a job with a lot of stability was quite prominent. That’s how I ended up working in economics. However, I started practicing photography during that same time period in my life, and my passion kept growing until I was able to do a full-time switch and make it my career.

CC: You exhibited your work in Beirut, Dubai, London and Paris and you also give workshops. Being a self-taught photographer, how did you sense the opportunity of turning your passion into a full-time job?
LZ: It can take a lot of time switching to photography as a full-time job. In my case, it started with baby steps and then things started to work out for me. After considering photography as a major hobby, my breakthrough was winning a prize at one of the region’s most renowned art galleries, “Ayyam”, and joining their incubator program. When you are passionate about something you put all your energy into it with the greatest love. I used to spend a lot of time reading about photography and participating in photo competitions.

Rotten Beauty – Lara Zankoul

Landing in Ayyam made me take my art more seriously and I started challenging myself more and more. This reflected on my work which developed and started getting me other golden opportunities, like exhibitions and workshops. With photography the challenge is always endless, there is always room for growth and development.

CC: You define yourself as a conceptual photographer. What kind of ideas do you strive to convey through your art?LZ: What I strive to do is having my photographs tell a story instead of just documenting a moment. There is a lot of importance in symbolism, and the ideas that invite the viewer to reflect on their own reality and states of mind, feelings, and things relating to psychology. It can mean different things to different people, which is part of the beauty of conceptual photography.

Rotten Beauty – Lara Zankoul

CC: Is “Rotten Beauty” your most recent series? Could you tell us a bit more about it?LZ: I really enjoyed working on the “Rotten Beauty” photos. It’s a work in progress and I still have a few photos to take to complete the series. It has a lot to do with the current garbage crisis the people in Lebanon are facing, but also can take broader dimensions about humanity. The political connotation to the series is the prevalence of the garbage crisis in a country where appearances play a major role in society. The plastic humans portrayed in the series have an empty or arrogant look and are the subject of attraction of the flies, and we know that usually flies are attracted by garbage. The following quote by Norman Cousins also portrays the meaning behind the series: “The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live”. The flies, in this case, would be attracted to the rotten part of us.

CC: In “The Unseen” series, the models are half-submerged in water and the reality you see above and under the surface of the water differs. Is “The Unseen” aiming to display a world of appearances and the idea that we should focus on seeing beyond this?LZ: That’s definitely the core theme of the series. “The Unseen” series is meant to portray two different sides to the same story, and appearance versus reality comes into play in each photograph.

CC: You are from Lebanon. Is your culture an influence for your creative process? Where else do you draw inspiration from?LZ: The lovely thing about inspiration for me personally is that I can find it anywhere. It can come from something as simple as an everyday experience to something as complex as human behavior and psychology. There are surely traces of influence from my culture as a whole, but overall my work hasn’t been strictly focused on it.

Frennemies – Lara Zankoul

CC: Have you ever pushed yourself out of your comfort zone in the process of implementing the conceptual photography you had in your mind?LZ: Oh, definitely! First of all, I think pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is a necessary step for any artist. It really makes you test your limits and see what you’re capable of doing, and what else you need to work on. I’d say “The Unseen” was the first time I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone. Implementing this idea I had in mind for months was a big challenge, I was scared it wouldn’t work out, it was a risk I am taking but sometimes the greater the risk, the greater the glory.

CC: What kind of projects are you eager to participate or engage in during 2016?LZ: Anything that challenges me further and stimulates my creativity.